We spent the final two nights of our mid-March shakedown cruise in Hammersley Inlet. Shelton and the Oakland Bay Marina are at the elbow of Hammersley Inlet, where it bends into Oakland Bay. We've anchored in the area many nights, and spent hours exploring the area by dinghy and on foot. We enjoy the industry: the timber mill off Shelton, Taylor Shellfish Farms, and a complex gravel mine conveyer and barge-loading system that moves the barge back and forth rather than the conveyor. We even enjoy seeing the trucks full of logs pass on nearby State Route 3 on their way to the mill. And at night, the sky glows in the distance from the mill lights. There's also plenty of nature to enjoy, particularly at high tide when a dinghy can reach into deep into the drying heads.

We rarely see other boats at anchor in the area. A major reason is navigating Hammersley Inlet. The waterway looks difficult on Chart 18547 (and even harder on a smaller-scale chart), but is generally wide and reasonably deep. Only a few tight spots require careful course selection. The main navigation challenge is oncoming traffic, particularly tugboats with barges. In that case, the tugboat operator selects their course, and you take what is left. We didn't encounter any tug traffic this trip, and visibility was much better than on some of our previous visits, when the fog was so thick we could hardly see the shore on either side.

We travelled to Hammersley Inlet from Stretch Island Marine Park at the north end of Case Inlet  (route details). The most direct route there is through Pickering Passage along the west side of Harstene Island. Halfway along is the Harstene Island bridge, with a clearance of 31 feet at mean high water. The tide level was 13 feet and mean high water there is 24 feet. With our estimated air draft of 30 feet (we'd not yet measured it) there should be ten feet between the bridge and the top of our the stack. We approached slowly, judged we had sufficient room, then carefully worked our way through. We had plenty of room, although the clearance seemed more like five feet than ten.

Given the clearance appeared closer than documented, we wanted a way to precisely check the close ones. So we measured our air draft with a Fluke 411D laser distance meter and got 30.5' feet from the waterline to the top of the stack. We then measured the distance from a fixed point on the bow to the waterline and got 7.1'. That means we would need 23.4' (30.5'-7.1') above the bow in order to clear a bridge.

Now when we approached a bridge, we can put just poke the bow under, and measure the distance to the bridge with the laser meter. If we have at least 23.4 feet, then we can clear.

A major spring storm was forecast to hit the Puget Sound on Friday. A 972-mb low over southern Vancouver Island would generate storm-force winds along the  Washington state coast. A gale warning was in effect for the more-protected Puget Sound, and winds there were forecast to reach 30-40 knots, with wind waves of 5-7 feet. Perfect. We'd get a chance to test the new boat in rough waters.

The storm was at its worst when we left Bell Harbor Marina Friday afternoon. Winds at nearby West Point were southerly 37 knots, gusting to 41. The main fairway out of the Bell Harbor Marina runs alongside a sloping rock wall--the lower the tide, the smaller the fairway. We left on a zero-foot low tide, with the wall to port and a boat on the end of the dock to starboard. This gave us about 30 feet of usable fairway, or only about 8 feet on either side of our 16' beam. This sounds like plenty, but with a new boat and a strong wind, it actually was tighter than it sounds . The east-west channel from the marina into Elliott Bay also is narrow, and waves were breaking across the entrance. But we had no trouble navigating the fairway or exiting the marina. The boat felt solid and stable.

Outside, large waves swept across Elliott Bay and broke high up on the bow of the 650-foot freighter Westwood Columbia as it approached Seattle from the northwest.

Conditions were rough but tolerable. We ran at 8 knots about halfway across Elliott Bay, on a southwesterly course for Yukon Harbor. This put the waves pretty much on our nose. After burying the bow a few times, we pulled off some speed to reduce the motion. We ran most of the way without the stabilizers, to see how the boat felt, and found it pretty comfortable.

According to Cliff Mass' Storm Review, the maximum gusts at West Point reached 53 knots that afternoon. Conditions probably were in the top ten for worse that we've experienced on the previous boat. We normally would have been worn-out after arriving, but the 52 handled the conditions with ease. Everything stayed put and we arrived at Yukon Harbor fairly relaxed and comfortable. One thing we've done to prepare for rough water in both boats is to have a way to secure everything, inside and out. Even with no safety risk, having things moving is distracting and disconcerting. Offshore sailors reported that loose items shifting and falling reduces a crew’s confidence in their vessel’s safety. On the 52, we've installed D-rings in the cockpit and boat deck and use ratchet straps to secure everything on deck.

Yukon Harbor is another one of our unusual anchorages. The bay is exposed to the north, but has good holding and excellent southwest protection. We overnight there a lot, particularly in the winter when prevailing winds are from the south. Safely at anchor, we fired up the barbecue and had a relaxing steak dinner.

From Eagle Island, we made a short trip to another favorite anchorage at Nisqually Flats. The anchorage is a bit unusual, but we love the mountain views in both directions. Conditions generally are calm unless the winds pick up from the north, so even on overcast days, its a good anchorage. Mount Rainier wasn't quite as visible as at Eagle Island yesterday, although still was dramatic, but the Olympics were very clear. And we were happy to hear the piper as she walked along the shore.

We spent a couple of days at Nisqually, unpacking our endless pile of boxes and testing out the various systems. The warm weather continued, and the temperature was warm enough that we could have a morning coffee break outside on the boat deck.

The boat deck on the 52 is 2 feet longer than the 47, giving us plenty of space for a table. But that extended deck, plus a deeper swim platform, made launching the dinghy from stern a challenge. The capability to launch to all three locations--port starboard and stern--was important to us though. To accommodate a stern launch, we upgraded the davit from a Steelhead SM1500R with a 12' reach to a custom Steelhead ES1100 with a 16' reach, and moved the standpipe aft 1'3". This has worked out well--we can launch the dinghy single-handed to all three positions.

We also tested out deploying the flopper stopper, which was relatively straightforward. Conditions were so calm that we couldn't gauge how well it would work though. Since the stack on the 52 has been moved aft compared to the 47, we moved the whisker pole mount aft a similar amount, so that the topping lift would connect directly above the pole on the exhaust stack.

Friday afternoon we cruised south from Bell Harbor Marina for a week-long shakedown cruise in the South (Puget) Sound. We visit there frequently--it's easily accessible from Seattle and has excellent anchorages, many with views to Mount Rainier and the Olympic Mountains. Relatively few boaters visit however, compared to the cruising grounds to the north, such as the San Juan Islands.  We know many people who have cruised the Pacific Northwest for years, but have never visited the South Sound.

Definitions of the South Sound vary, but we never feel officially there until we've passed under the Tacoma Narrows Bridges.

The weather was clear and at 59°F, unseasonably warm for March in the Pacific Northwest, with great mountain views. Below are the snow-covered Olympic Mountains viewed over the Fox Island bridge.

That night we stopped at Eagle Island Marine State Park, a long-time favorite of ours.  Mount Rainer was out in fully glory, with a colorul sunrise the next morning.

While underway yesterday, we received an email from Paul & Linda Dugger, saying "What a beautiful craft. Your new boat is glistening in the morning sun." They had noticed Dirona at anchor and sent some pictures taken from the deck of their house on Anderson Island. What an amazing view they must have from their deck, and we sure appreciate them sending us the pictures.

This weekend we completely filled our fuel tanks for the first time. We had called around to get pricing for taking on 1,700 gallons:

• Shilshole: $3.02
• Poulsbo: $2.88 (up from previous week of $2.75)
• Port Orchard: $2.81
• Kingston: $2.79
• Tacoma: $2.99-$0.20 (for over 1,000 gallons): $2.79 (we were told $2.66)
• Ballard Oil: $2.73
• Covich-Williams: $2.69 cash & $2.80 credit

The prices were slightly cheaper inside the locks, at Ballard Oil and Covich-Williams, but the hassle and time to go through offset that somewhat. We chose Tacoma as the prices were competitive and good anchorage was nearby in Quartermaster Harbor.

We left Seattle late in the afternoon, and arrived in Quartermaster after dark. We were heading south into steady 25-knot winds on the nose, but the boat rode so comfortably that we eventually stuck our head out the window to see if it really was blowing 25. The opening door was hard to hold against the wind. It really was blowing that hard but, in the pilot house, we had no spray or other evidence of wind other than watching the waves.  Not noticing a small craft warning is a big difference from the previous boat.

We were able to run comfortably from the pilot house along the east side of Vashon in the dark. We’ll still want to get some kind of light dimming screens for the nav monitors—even with the screen brightness turned down and the chart plotter in night mode, the screens still were pretty bright. (We have 4 Lenovo ThinkVison L1900ps.) Buoys and crab traps litter the entrance to Quartermaster Harbor, so we ran from the fly bridge to enter the anchorage. Visibility from up there was excellent.

Saturday morning we arrived early at the fuel dock and waited for them to open up. We’d drained the side tanks completely so that we could accurately gauge our capacity, and were down to only 15 gallons in the supply tank, with fuel barely showing at the bottom of the sight gauge. That's under 1% of the capacity of the boat. We’ll bet we never choose to run it that low again.

We stretched a length of tape on the sight gauge level marking card and then added 50 gallons to each tank, marking off on the tape in 50-gallon increments. We hit the top of the sight gauges at 600 to port and 650 to starboard, and continued filling until fuel just bubbled up to the top of the fill pipe. We’d fuelled for about three hours, and the port tank took 834 gallons while the starboard tank took 831 gallons. That gives us 1,665 in the side tanks. Adding the 70 gallons in the supply and the 10 gallons in the day tank, we have 1,745 gallons usable fuel.

After fueling, we returned to Quartermaster for the night. We spent some time setting up the auto pilot—tracking is improved but more work is still needed. On Sunday, we had a nice easy run back to Bell Harbor with lunch underway. We didn’t notice a major difference in handling with the full tanks other than the boat is a bit more stable and doesn’t lean out as much on turns, but we’ve not had much of a chance to play with the boat yet to compare. We’re entering the final stages of commissioning, and while there still is much work to do, the boat is coming along wonderfully. We’ll be heading out for a week-long shakedown cruise starting this weekend, and will continue to settle in and learn more.